Defying trends, the country's largest private sector lender, HDFC Bank, has shifted its asset mix significantly towards high-rated segments. As a result, its wholesale-to-retail mix has tilted heavily in favour of wholesale, even at the cost of margins. Further, it is even looking to ramp up its branch network, with an aim to service clients within a 1-2 km radius rather than the current 5-6 km radius.
After missing two self-imposed deadlines, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday announced recalibration of a proposed $15 billion deal to sell 20 per cent stake in its oil refinery and petrochemical business to Saudi Aramco, saying the two firms have agreed to re-evaluate the proposed investment in light of the Indian firm's new energy forays. The stake sale talks, which were first officially revealed in August 2019, are being reset in light of Reliance making forays into new energy business in recent months by investing $10 billion in alternative energy over three years. To pivot to green energy, it has already bought a German maker of photovoltaic solar wafers and signed a deal with a Danish company to manufacture hydrogen electrolysers in India.
Long before he launched Paytm, Vijay Shankar Sharma, a 32 year old from Aligarh, embarked on his ambitious entrepreneurial journey.
UltraTech Cement was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising 3.06 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Titan, Axis Bank, SBI and Reliance Industries. NSE Nifty advanced 78.35 pointsto close at 14,814.75.
The company will invest additional $60 million in India.
Consumption is among the most diversified and sought-after themes in Indian equities. Over the past five years, consumption theme funds have given an annualised category average return of 15.17 per cent, according to the data from Value Research. But this theme has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which impacted jobs and livelihood.
Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.
These unicorns, or startups valued at over USD 1 billion, are across industries, beyond technology and tech-enabled sectors as well, like pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods, Credit Suisse India equity strategist Neelkanth Mishra told reporters in Mumbai.
Experts say while the increasing demand for a ban on Chinese goods might make for good optics, the reality is that India is still heavily dependent on that country in a wide range of industries like electronics, mobile devices, auto, pharma, telecom equipment, and fertilisers.
The four-member committee will be headed by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi S Vempati. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the present guidelines issued by it in 2014 on Television Rating agencies in India were notified after detailed deliberations by the Parliamentary Committee, Committee on Television Rating Points (TRP) constituted by the ministry and recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority etc.
'For the next two years, we expect the bulk of earnings growth contribution from sectors like financials and energy, where the outlook remains positive, while the sectors which are linked to domestic consumption and are currently witnessing strains on margins have low salience for Nifty earnings.'
SBI was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, jumping around 3 per cent, followed by Kotak Bank, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement and PowerGrid. NSE Nifty rose 36.40 points to 15,337.85.
HCL Tech was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying around 5 per cent, followed by Tech Mahindra, Infosys, PowerGrid, Sun Pharma, L&T and Nestle India. NSE Nifty climbed 137.90 points or 1.03 per cent to 13,466.30.
India can potentially have 40 million 5G users in the first year when the next-generation service is made available to them, a report released by telecom company Ericsson said on Wednesday. According to Ericsson ConsumerLab report, consumers have shown willingness to pay 50 per cent more for 5G plans bundled with digital services while they want to pay only 10 per cent more for just 5G connectivity. The data collected from 26 countries in December 2020 for the report shows that consumers across several markets are willing to pay 20-30 per cent more on an average for 5G plans bundled with digital service use cases.
Sensex rally was driven by Bajaj FinServ, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Axis Bank. NSE Nifty climbed 326.50 points to end at 15,245.60.
A reception often reserved for rockstars came the way of mining mogul Anil Agarwal when he started revealing nuggets of his ascent from a scrap-metal dealer to one of India's most prominent self-made industrialists on social media. And now he has been flooded with booking writing proposals and has even been offered money for a biopic. In February this year, Agarwal, 68, started tweeting his journey from Bihar to Mumbai first and then to London to head a globally diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, iron ore, steel, copper, aluminium, power, oil and gas.
Feedback from telecom members indicated a 10 per cent increase in traffic, but no fears of choked networks. Telcos currently use 65-70 per cent of the network capacity. In other words, they have enough additional capacity to handle the new pressure without clogging the system.
Delay due to rise in operating cost of telcos, late adoption of 4G network
'Uddhav has told the cops to crack down hard on the MNS agitation if MNS activists try to vitiate the communal harmony in the state.'
Party insiders concede statements of the Raja kind have the potential to hurt the DMK's electoral chances in closely-fought seats in 2024, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Tech Mahindra was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, jumping over 5 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finserv, L&T, Tata Steel and Infosys. NSE Nifty surged 191.95 points to 15,824.05.
Bajaj Finance was the top laggard in the Sensex pack, skidding over 2 per cent, followed by Kotak Bank, Nestle India, HDFC, M&M and ICICI Bank. ONGC was the top gainer, rallying around 8 per cent. NTPC, Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra, PowerGrid and IndusInd Bank were among the other winners.
Reliance Industries was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging over 3 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv, IndusInd Bank, HDFC twins and Kotak Bank. NSE Nifty surged 143.25 points or 1.18 per cent to 12,263.55.
Restoration of road and tele-communication network in the Kashmir Valley, ravaged by floods, will take three to five days. The Centre has directed free flow of transport via Manali and Leh to Srinagar, the only available surface network, a top central government official said on Monday.
Reliance was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging over 3 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy, Maruti and ITC.
Make no mistake, Reliance's entry into Indian e-commerce cannot be taken lightly. It is akin to a combine of AT&T and Wal-Mart challenging Amazon on its home turf, says Shailesh Dobhal.
The finance ministry on Wednesday reimposed expenditure curbs on ministries and government departments for July-September quarter. There will be no spending restrictions on the ministries of health, rural development, agriculture, MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) and railways as part of a two-pronged strategy. "The existing guidelines for expenditure control have been reviewed. "Keeping in view the evolving situation arising out of Covid-19 and anticipated cash position of the government, it is felt essential to regulate Quarterly Expenditure Plan (QEP)/Monthly Expenditure Plan (MEP) of specific ministries/departments for July-September, 2021," the Department of Economic Affairs in the finance ministry said in a notification.
While analysts remains overweight on financials, property, discretionary, industrials and materials, they maintain a neutral stance on pharma, telecom and energy; and underweight on staples, utilities, and IT services.
The latest ad, done by O&M again, Vodafone's ad agency, shows two engineers tinkering away in a dimly-lit highway tunnel.
Ordering groceries, vegetables and daily essentials is just a WhatsApp away as billionaire Mukesh Ambani's e-commerce platform JioMart taps into the popular messaging app to scale up online business in its fight for dominance in the giant Indian retail market with Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Ambani's twin children, Akash and Isha gave a preview of the ordering at Meta's second edition of the Fuel for India event on Wednesday. A new 'tap and chat' option allows users to order groceries through WhatsApp.
ONGC was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying around 6 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, L&T, UltraTech Cement, Titan, SBI and NTPC. NSE Nifty settled 32.10 points up at 14,707.80.
Sectorally, BSE metal, basic materials, energy, realty, power, oil and gas, finance, FMCG, bankex and telecom indices fell up to 1.71 per cent.
M&M was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, soaring around 7 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv, Bharti Airtel, PowerGrid, Infosys and ICICI Bank. On the other hand, HUL, Kotak Bank, Bajaj Finance and ITC were among the laggards.
Overall, the credit profiles of players will be supported by healthy balance sheets and liquidity. Prudence in capital and development expenditure, efficient working-capital management, and recent equity raising will help sustain credit metrics in FY22.
The new rules are aimed at providing a strong impetus to the industry and positioning India as one of the most competitive IT jurisdictions in the world.
'One can start accumulating economy driven stocks in the next few months with a two-three year view.'
Mid- and small-cap indices have outperformed the frontline benchmarks - the S&P BSE Sensex (up around 10 per cent) and the Nifty50 (13 per cent) - in the first half of calendar year 2021 (H1-CY21) by rallying 26 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively. The trend, analysts believe, is likely to continue in H2-CY21 as well. The outperformance in H1-CY21 comes on the back of improved earnings and strong inflows from the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in Indian equities. However, good monsoon so far, gradual opening up of the economy and the pick-up in the pace of vaccination provides support to the market.
Markets
The CJI has also kept with himself matters concerning arbitration, habeas corpus, criminal cases, contempt of court and ordinary civil matters.
